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BABES FEST is an independent comedy, music and film festivalproduced by #bossbabesATX.

Produced by #bossbabesATX, BABES FEST recently held its second-annual festival in Austin, Texas on July 27 through July 29, 2017 at The North Door, Empire Control Room & Garage and the Austin School of Film. Since we launched BABES FEST in March 2016, we’ve been steadily showcasing artists year-round. At our launch event at the Salvage Vanguard Theater, we curated 27 acts. Shortly thereafter, we produced an educational shindig for women in comedy, film and music in New York City (with incredible panelists like Jessica Williams and Katja Blichfield). Over the last year, we’ve partnered with the Bullock Museum on their #femmefilmfridays series, and last summer we produced a screening for Love in the Sixties and Fembeat at Sekrit Theater.

We believe BABES FEST’s blend of comedy, film and music provides a multi-industry, cross-platform experience for our community—one that allows for unexpected discovery, inspiration and wonderment. And if it’s not apparent, we include women in 100% of acts on the lineup.

Why does BABES FEST exist?

1.) Women kick ass.

2.) And some of this:

Half of the people who attend music festivals are women, but the percent of women performers (single artists and all-women groups) hover between 5 and 19 percent. — HuffPost Data

51% of visual artists today are women; on average, they earn 81 cents for every dollar made by male artists. — National Museum for Women in the Arts

The gender divide across all music-industry related jobs is 67.8% male to 32.2% female. — Creative and Cultural Skills

In 2016, women comprised 17% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 domestic grossing films. — Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film

Less than 30% of TV writers are female, even though, on average, women watch 40 more minutes of TV per day than men. — Nielsen Report

In 2015, 3.4 percent of film directors were female, and only 7 percent of films had a cast whose balance of race and ethnicity reflected the country's diversity. — Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

Not so fun fact: There aren't many stats about women in comedy. After reviewing rough guesstimates from different members of the industry (of which there are too many to list here), we have gathered that women comedians seem to comprise anywhere from 5% to 25% of comedy shows. To put this into perspective, by our count, only 20% of women comedians comprised the SXSW Comedy Lineup in 2017.

*It's important to note that the above statistics mostly factor gender alone into the equation; depending on a woman's other identities (regarding race, sexuality, socioeconomic background, culture, religion, etc.) these statistics become even grimmer.

The moral of the story? Better representation = better art.

"If Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, crashed her ship in Texas and threw a festival, this would be it." — us, scheming up this festival

*"WOMEN" REFERS TO SELF-IDENTIFYING WOMEN:

We believe the definition of "woman" is complex and varied and cannot be limited to the conventional, historical standards/expectations women have been held to. We prioritize voices from different backgrounds, sharing a variety of cultures, races, sexual orientations, etc.